India's fastest-growing AI-native upskilling platform, today announced TakeOver 2026, India's Largest Student-Led AI & Engineering Showcase. The two-day event will bring together over 1,000 students, aged 18-19, from 18 campuses across 7 cities - Delhi, Jaipur, Kolhapur, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Vijayawada, and Guntur to demonstrate how the next generation of engineers is building real-world AI solutions.
The event will feature live AI prototype demonstrations, shark tank-style startup pitches, hackathons and coding championships, with students presenting innovations developed through NIAT's experiential learning ecosystem before a panel of industry leaders, tech CEOs, and investors - Ujjwal Aggarwal (CEO, WCB Robotics Inc.), R. Mahan SRK (Founder & CVO, HackBoats), Srinivas Aditya (Digital R&D Physical AI Engineering Expert, Sanofi), Kartik Soni (Lead Robotics and IsaacSim Engineer, Techolution), Vimal Kumar (IoT Product Team Lead, KeusSmart Home), R. Varun (Founder, Robotics India Community).
Rahul Attuluri, CEO & Co-Founder, NxtWave and NIAT, said, "At NIAT, we have always believed that the next wave of innovation in AI, robotics, space technology, healthcare, and engineering will come from students who are given the right environment to build and the rightpeople to learn from. TakeOver 2026 brings together over 1,000 students from 18 campuses - making it India's largest student showcase for AI and engineering and what you will see here is not academic work. These are real prototypes, real startup pitches,and real solutions built by students who have been trained to think like founders from their first year. This platform gives them something that no classroom can - direct engagement with industry leaders, investors, and founders who can accelerate what theyhave built.”
TakeOver 2026 will celebrate students who have demonstrated exceptional innovation, technical excellence, andentrepreneurial spirit. Backed by a cumulative prize pool of over ₹6.75 lakhs, students will compete for cash prizes, industry recognition, mentorship, and opportunities to accelerate their ideas. BRAVE – a launchpad for student entrepreneurs creating real businesses with real impact, was built on a simple belief: entrepreneurship cannot be taught through classrooms alone, it must be experienced by solving real-world problems. The initiative enabledover 150 teams to generate more than ₹2 crore in revenue in just three months while launching 100+ student-led startups.
This impact is reflected in the success of teams like Editco Media (₹15.57 lakh), Versa (₹14.1 lakh), and Webaura (₹13.88 lakh), whose founders transformed classroom learning into thriving businesses, demonstrating how practical, AI-driven entrepreneurship can empower students to become jobcreators and build sustainable ventures.
The student entrepreneurs will participate in live Shark Tank-style pitch sessions before investors, startup founders, and technology leaders to present AI-powered ventures they have built over the past three monthswhile working with MSMEs across sectors including construction, healthcare, education, retail, hospitality, agriculture, and fintech, featuring innovations such as AI-powered construction cost intelligence platforms, digital medical assistants, smart restaurantordering systems, school management platforms, subscription-commerce solutions for local businesses, and AI-enabled financial management tools.
Beyond presenting their products, teams will defend their business models, demonstrate customer traction and revenuegenerated. Thinkjoyful Learning, a difficulty-based LMS for IIT/JEE prep; MediAI, an AI medical assistant to streamline clinical documentation; and MediFlow, a QR-based digital prescription platform to access and share prescriptions; BuildTrack - an AI-powered Construction Cost Intelligence Platform.
Maker's Conclave challenges students to build real-world functioning prototypes across domains like Health, Agriculture, Safety & Transport, and Disaster Response.Students will demonstrate AI Prototypes such as SmartSurv AI, an AI-powered surveillance system that detects intrusions in real time and alerts security personnel instantly without needing continuous human monitoring, and NeuroGrip, a smart assistive pen designed to improve writing habits for individuals with motor disabilities like dysgraphia.
TakeOver Hackathon brings outlier technical performers from 18 campuses for an open coding session to build for business solutions such as AI copilots, financialworkflows and digital system for operations and inventory etc. GRIT recognizes students who've shown consistency beyond the classroom, and NIAT Code Quest identifies and prepares students for national coding competitions like ICPC.
The Grand Finale will be held on 18th July, where students from 7 cities will come together to compete, earning recognition for their hard work and perseverance throughout the program. Beyond theprize money, successful student pitches stand to gain funding and grants from investors, along with mentorship from industry experts giving students not just a moment of recognition, but a genuine foundation into their entrepreneurial and professional journeys.
